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Learn about mobile development with JavaScript in Visual Studio 2017

10/31/2016

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Overview

Microsoft's Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova is a Microsoft Visual Studio workload that simplifies development of mobile apps on Android, iOS, and Windows using Apache Cordova. Apache Cordova enables cross-platform mobile development using standard web technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). The Tools for Apache Cordova may be installed along with your initial Visual Studio installation, or added to it later by simply re-running the installer. The workload installs a complete Apache Cordova development environment within Visual Studio, plus adds Cordova project templates and Cordova-specific capabilities to the IDE. It includes the following capabilities:

Simplified installation of a complete Apache Cordova development environment.

The most unique capability is the tool's ability to deliver live debugging of Android, iOS, and Windows Cordova applications, all from within the IDE. Use the Visual Studio debugger to attach to iOS, Android, and Windows apps, hit breakpoints, and inspect code using the console and DOM Explorer. Support for iOS development is provided through remotebuild, a package that runs on a remote Apple Mac OS development system.

The Visual Studio installer identifies and installs the right versions of the required SDKs, tools, and libraries that you need to build Apache Cordova applications using Visual Studio.